“Jack. A ninety-year-old man with debility. Hard of hearing. He cannot use his legs and is a total lift. Slight cognitive impairments from his age.”
I enter the room, and he is lying in bed. The first thing I notice are the eyes. I haven’t seen eyes that light of a blue color- is he blind? I know with blindness, or cataracts, the eyes will turn this shade of blue, like a robin’s egg. But he looks over at me and smiles this closed mouth smile with those friendly blue eyes. I see him, and he sees me. The next thing I notice is the posture- even though he’s bedbound, his posture is upright and confident, and he is tall. I introduce myself as his caregiver for the entirety of his stay in the rehabilitation unit. He doesn’t say much, a quiet man.
Later that day, I enter Jack’s room and a woman is visiting. She introduces herself as his daughter. She tells me how long he’s been in the hospital- a whole month so far. He was in a car accident and as a result, has lost the use of his legs completely. She tells me how she wishes he can go back home, how he would hate to go into a nursing home. I look over at him, and he says nothing, just smiles that closed mouth smile. Then I leave the room. As I’m walking out the door, I hear him say to his daughter, “Will you be back tomorrow?” Therefore, I know he is verbal, but he must be a quiet man.
The next morning: With the help of another caregiver, we get Jack out of bed. The other caregiver leaves, and I dress him by myself. While I’m getting him ready for the day, I ask where he is from. It’s slow and with some hesitation, but he finally speaks up. “I’m from a small town in West Virginia. It’s a few hours away from this hospital. There are lots of hills and a river to fish in, and it’s where I grew up. I met my wife, Alice there. I hope to go back to that town when I leave here.”
That’s the first I’ve heard from him. I then ask what it was like to grow up in a small town, in 1930 when he was born. “It was tough. How old are you?” He asks. I tell him I’m 26. “By the time I was your age, I was married with three kids and was drafted into the army.” I ask what he did in the army, and he retorts, “I fought for my life.” I think about how different things must’ve been when he was my age. Jack tells me he likes to fish, and I say I’ve always wanted to learn. “Well come on down to my house, and I’ll show you,” he says with a playful look in his eyes.
It’s a few days later, and I’m on the night shift, and it’s getting late. I get report on Jack and ask how his progress is. He still has no use over his legs. He hasn’t gotten much better sense the car accident. I go into his room, and he lights up when he sees me. As I’m getting him ready for bed, I again ask him more about his life growing up. He happily tells me, “I met my wife Alice when I was 20 years old. I would see her and her friends parading around the movie theater.” With a mischievous smile he adds, “She was 16 and pregnant. Her mother hated me for that, but we got married right away. I guess you can say I picked her up, and never put her back down.”
As Jack is telling me his story, I look at him, and now he’s 20 years old. In the mind’s eye, he gets up out of that hospital bed. His legs work. His arms are strong, complimenting that confident posture. There’s a movie theater across the street, and a young girl wearing a dress, surrounded by her friends. She recognizes him, gives a shy smile over her shoulder, tosses her braided hair. They must have been meeting for quite some time. He goes up to her, and she takes his arm. He leads her away from her friends. She’s holding her stomach. I smile and leave the room.
Later that night, I hear Jack yelling from his room. I go in and a sinking feeling starts as he yells to me, “I have a lot of ammunition here. Now get me out of this bed, and let’s attack.” He doesn’t know where he is. I try orienting him: “You’re in the hospital. You’ve been here for a month, due to a car accident. You’re 90 years old.” It’s to no avail. “Bullshit,” he yells. “Now get me out of this bed, we need to raid their territory. Grab your weapon and get me out of here.” I just look down at him, unsure of what to do or say. The nurse comes in and tells me to sit in with him, to stay with him until he falls asleep. I do so for hours in the dead of the night, sitting there in his room, listening to him yell about the war, about how the enemies have powerful armies, about how we need to get our guns and go.
Two days later, and I’m back on my regular day shift. The first thing I do is go into Jack’s room. He just looks at me and says, “Look… I’m sorry about the other night. I just thought… I thought…” He scrunches up his face, trying to think, to recall. But I take his hand and squeeze it. I tell him it’s okay. I tell him to forget about it, I’m just happy to see him. He gives me that smile with those robin egg eyes. “So, tell me,” I ask, “What did you do for a living?”
“I worked in the steel mill. I worked in the steel mill when I got back from the army, while my wife was at home raising the kids.” I ask what he did in the steel mill. “I worked underground, powering the furnaces. The furnaces were huge, and extremely hot.” He points to the wall ahead of us. “They were from that end of the wall to the other end of the wall.” We look over at the beige hospital wall together, and I see it. I see the furnaces right in front of me, and I see him there with the other men, covered in sweat and dirt. I hear their yelling over the deafening industrial noises, and I feel the heat radiating from the furnaces.
He goes on. “I used to bring my lunch to work, but there were giant rats down there in the mills. They would eat my lunch, and there would be holes in the brown bag. So, anytime we would see rats, we’d pick them up by the tail, and throw them in the furnace. We would know they were dead when the hair was seared off their body.” This makes me laugh, and I tell him that was savage. He gives me that smile, a glint in his eyes as he teases, “What’s savage, is taking somebody else’s lunch.”
It’s three days later. I get report on Jack. He has made very little progress from rehab. His legs still don’t work, and his weakness will not subside. I go into his room, and his daughter is there. She sighs as she tells me, “He is leaving in four days. I don’t know where he’s going, but I’m fighting to keep him out of a nursing home. I know he doesn’t want to go there, and mom wouldn’t want it either.” My stomach drops. Only four more days. This means I’ll only get to see him today, then tomorrow, then never again. His daughter leaves for the day, and I talk to Jack. He’s reflective today.
He has the news on as usual, and there is violence and unrest broadcasted per status quo. “Do you support that?” He asks me with disgust. I just shake my head. He goes on. “Things weren’t always like that.” He pauses, then adds, “But then again, I used to be quite different.” He looks far away. “I used to smoke a lot. I used to drink a lot too. I’d work the night shift in the steel mills, then the workers and I would go to the bar in the morning. We’d drink all day, then sleep for maybe an hour, right where we are at. Then, we’d go back to work that night. My wife Alice hated that.” I see him sitting in the bar with the other workers, still sweaty and dirty from the night before. I see his wife at home, raising three kids in a lonely house.
The next day. It’s my last day to care for Jack. I go into his room and break the news to him. “I’m going to miss you,” he proclaims. “I like talking to you.” I squeeze his hand and tell him how much I enjoy talking to him. I stay there with him for an hour after my shift ends, just listening to his stories, a perfect picture of what this man’s story was in his youth. I’m holding back tears. I have to leave so he won’t see me cry. When I leave his room, I tell the nurse, “At least he will see his wife when he leaves.” I see something in her eyes as she carefully asks, “You… you don’t know?” The story unfolds.
It’s the day before Jack was admitted into the hospital. Him and Alice are still living in the same small West Virginia town they’ve lived in for their whole lives. Their kids have left the town in favor of the city, but at least they still have each other. Jack is 90, Alice is 86. They shouldn’t still be living on their own at this age, but that’s the way they’ve done it for their whole lives, and they don’t plan on changing that any time soon. They love the house they moved into after they got married so young. They love the old wooden floors, and how close the market is.
Jack is experiencing weakness in his legs, his hearing is going, and his memory isn’t quite like it used to be. He is unaware of this, because to him, things are the way they’ve always been. He loves Alice all the same. When he looks at her, he sees those secret meetings they had when she was 16, and he was 20. When she started showing, and Alice’s mother found out, she condemned Jack. But he just had to have her. He looks at her and remembers their wedding, right before their first daughter was born. He looks at her, and sees the girlish mannerisms she has, the dresses she wears, the braided hair.
It’s another day that they’ve lived for the 70 years of their marriage. They are out of groceries, and it’s time to restock. Jack opens the car door for Alice, and they get in. Jack is driving. It’s an overcast day, it’s storming outside, the roads are wet. They take the usual route. A car is passing, splashing water on the windshield. It rains harder. Another passing car is hydroplaning, but Jack’s reaction rate is down. The other driver lays on the horn, but Jack’s hearing is going. All too late Jack realizes what is happening, but his legs are weak on the break petals. Too late. The cars collide. Jack survives, his wife does not.
It’s three months after Jack has left the hospital, and I’m on my regular day shift. I still wonder how he’s doing, where he went after he left. I know that although Jack was unable to care for himself after he left the hospital, all he wanted was to go back to his town. Out of curiosity, I ask the unit social worker where he went. She tells me, “He went to live with his daughter, who isn’t far from here.”
And then I see him. He’s still hard of hearing, his legs still don’t work, and his wife has passed. But I know he’s at his daughter’s house. He’s warm in his bed, and he watches the sunset through the window. His family comes to visit him daily. He curses the news channel, falls asleep near the fireplace. He eats his daughter’s cooking, and they look at pictures of Alice together. And I know deep down he’s okay. You see, Jack is a very smart man, with those robin’s egg blue eyes and that closed mouth smile, and he knows Alice is waiting for him.
This is true story, written from my time working in a hospital. Names and locations have been changed for privacy reasons.